After The End
by Shadow0Fire
Summary: After Leondhardt and his friends sacrificed themselves to seal the pillar on Lucrellia, they expected to lose their souls to an eternity of nothingness. Instead, they awaken in an incredible world that defies reality itself, and they begin a new quest to discover their new fate; one that will include deception, destruction, and the betrayal of a trusted friend.
1. Unexpected Awakening

**So I'm writing another fic for a category with very few stories. This probably means it isn't too popular of a category, but I hope it'll at least be appreciated by the few people who do read it. And please review, seriously! I currently have four incomplete stories plus this one, so reviews really help me know which story to continue first. Stories with few reviews get written last!**

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><p>Leondhart could feel nothing, nor could he see anything that could tell him were he was. He had sealed the pillar on Lucrellia, and then he had been...consumed...was a word he would use. His soul had been used to seal the pillar; at least that was what Dyshana said would happen to him. He knew that Fyuria, Elaine, and Luana had all accompanied him as well. He wondered if they had been consumed too. Would he ever leave this place? This...limbo? He wanted to see Fyuria again. They had only been able to stay together for a short time, and it hadn't been enough.<p>

He wondered how everyone else was. Ellis and the others should've been taking care of his new son by now. Leo wasn't really worried about that though; Ladius was in good hands, and would grow up to be a fine man. Instead, his thoughts kept wandering to his current state. Was he supposed to exist like this for eternity? He might go mad if that was the case. It would be so much easier if his friends were here.

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><p>Leo's reverie was disrupted by...wind? He could feel a cool breeze flowing around him, sending slight shivers through him. He could move as well. He stretched his legs and clutched his hands, coming into contact with soft grass. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up at the bluest sky he had ever seen; It was completely cloudless, and although it seemed to be about noon judging from the brightness, the sun was nowhere in sight. He slowly rolled over and pushed himself up on his arms. Where was he? Certainly not Heaven. At least he didn't think he was. He pushed his arms into the small of his back to stretch his chest as efficiently as possible.<p>

"Uh...L-L-Leo..."

Leondhart looked away from the sky to the source of a voice he joyfully recognized. He spotted his lover standing near a copse of beech trees.

"Fyuria! I'm so glad you're..." He noticed the embarrassed look on her face, the red going up to her ears, and her stare focusing on a lower part of Leo's body. He looked down to see what it was, only to see that he was completely naked, and unwittingly thrusting his..."manhood" towards Fyuria while stretching. He quickly covered himself with his hands and glanced back at Fyuria, who he noticed was also naked. She didn't really have much to hide up top, (Although he would never tell her that) so she was holding her hands in-between her legs.

Leo averted his eyes by staring off towards a very peculiar horizon, where something seemed terribly wrong about the sun. "Fyuri...why are we uh...like this?"

She looked off in the opposite direction before answering. "I'm not sure...we didn't do anything...did we?" Before he could answer, she ran off into the beech trees behind her. "I-I'll go find our clothes! They should be around here somewhere!"

Leo examined his surroundings seriously for the first time since awakening. Firstly, he didn't see Luana or Elaine anywhere. But something about the environment was...wrong to him. The trees, the grass...all wrong somehow. As he looked more closely, he saw that the trees and other vegetation had a slight "aura" to them. They had a strange light emanating from them, a sickly turquoise color that seemed unnatural. And the sky...it seemed distorted. Like the air above Leo was twisted. He couldn't really tell what was wrong with the sky exactly, but he did know something was definitely odd about the horizon. The sun, first of all, was a very pale white, as if it would give off more cold than heat, and secondly, it seemed to have an unusual growth coming from it's side, a strange, bulbous growth that on a human would've been called a tumor. Something about the actual horizon line was strange as well. Instead of the ever so slight rounding look it usually had, it seemed to cut off completely, as if it was a cliff edge or some such.

And moreover, what had happened to his and Fyuri's clothes? He knew that the day before they sealed the pillar they had enjoyed themselves in bed, but...

"Leo! I found them!" Leo turned only his head to see Fyuria walking towards him with his clothes in hand. Much to his dismay, she had already dressed in hers.

"Ah, thanks Fyuri. Where were they?"

She blushed slightly and grinned in response to Leo's nickname for her. "They were um...hanging on some tree branches in the grove back there." She said motioning over her shoulder. But then she took a serious air about herself. "But something is wrong, Leo. Look at our clothes. They're different somehow."

Leo looked down at his clothing and noticed that she was right. The changes weren't anything major; just some color changes and patterns that didn't exist before. His coat was now gray instead of white, and his undershirt had an unusual spiral pattern on one of it's sleeves, something it definitely didn't have before. Fyuria spoke up again. "And although most of our equipment was there, some of it was missing."

Leo examined his stuff again for anything missing, but didn't notice anything. "Like what?"

She sighed. "Like your sword, genius. How could you not notice that?"

Leo looked at his things again and sifted through them. Again, Fyuria was right; Leo's sword was gone, sheath and all. He looked back to Fyuria disappointingly. "Well...did you lose anything Fyuri?"

At this she plopped down and hugged her knees forlornly. "I...couldn't find...the doll you gave me..." Her tone gave off a vibe of extreme sadness. It seemed like she almost wanted to cry.

Leo leaned forward and hugged her. "Don't worry. I'm sure our things are around here somewhere. After I get dressed, we'll go look for them together, OK?"

She smiled sadly at him. "Alright. And then we should find out where we are, right?" Leo looked around again at the twisted surroundings that he had awakened in. He was still worried, but the only thing to do for now was find out just what was going on, and then find his friends. But he had a feeling that it would be far more difficult than he made it out to be.

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><p><strong>REVIEWS PEOPLE, REVIEWS! C'mon, if you have time to kill reading fics, at least take a minute to help the writer by reviewing! PLEASE? CHUCK NORRIS APPROVES OF THOSE THAT DO!<strong>


	2. Not Your Everyday Countryside

**Now it has been forever since I worked on any fic except "If Only it Were Easy," so I haven't worked on any of my other three fics at all. However, I have gotten a lot of reviews asking me to continue this story, and not enough for the aforementioned fic, so while it's on ice, I'll be writing a chapters for my other fics instead. I appreciate any reviews, because like I said, they always help influence the story plot or story structure. Thanks for reading.**

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><p>"Hey, Leo. Have you noticed that this whole situation seems...off?"<p>

Fyuria couldn't shake the feeling that whatever was going on shouldn't be happening. Unless this place was the inside of the Lucrellia Pillar... but even that didn't make sense. Not enough for her to seriously consider it, at any rate.

Leo was slow to respond. "...It does seem that way... but I'm far more worried about the physical state of where we are. Things seem different. The plants look sickly, the sky seems bent, and the horizon feels unnatural. Wherever we are, it is far from normal, and that most likely means it is far from safe. We need to get moving, and find a place to stay, hopefully before nightfall. Let's worry about our exact situation later."

"I'm not sure there will be a nightfall, Leo."

Her husband looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"

Fyuria motioned towards the supposed sun with the abnormal growth on the horizon. "I've been keeping track of time as best I could, and I'd say we've been here for at least one to two hours. But the sun hasn't moved at all. As far as I can tell, it's in the exact same position as when we first saw it. What if wherever we are doesn't have day and night? What if this noon-time atmosphere is the only time there is?"

Leo rubbed his chin in thought. "That would be most...disconcerting. But I suppose that even if that is the case, it wouldn't affect us too terribly much. It may be a bit disorienting at first, but I think we can deal with it. And even then, it has gotten just a little darker. The sky was much...ah, bluer, earlier."

Fyuria cocked an eyebrow at him. "Bluer?"

Leo looked back at her indignantly. "Yes, BLUER. If you have a better term, than you tell me what it is."

She smirked. "Well yes, actually, I do. The sky was a lighter shade of blue when we awoke then it is right now." She looked up at the sky. I would say it is navy blue right now, which is a pretty dark contrast compared to the light blue just a little while earlier."

Leo turned away from her and stared at the sky as well. Although the sky itself had gotten much darker, the light was still the same as earlier. What an unusual phenomenon. But still, there were more important things to worry about. The sky was not as important as figuring out what the hell was going on. Investigating this place seemed to be the correct course of action at the time. He turned back to face Fyuria. "Let's go check out the horizon. It seems to be the easiest abnormality to follow around here. We'll just walk towards the sun, as it hasn't been powerful enough to blind us so far. Agreed?"

Fyuria glanced at him incredulously. Like she was going to object to any of his decisions. "Agreed."

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><p>Walking towards the horizon had seemed fruitless. By Fyuria's count, the pair had spent four hours walking towards the glowing white, monstrosity of a sun before they had reached anything that didn't look like the terrain around them. However, even seeing the same landscape for four hours had been fascinating. As Leo and Fyuria had moved out of the copse of trees they had awoken in, they had caught view of many things they hadn't been able to see from there. There were jagged mountains off to the west, (Or what they decided should be west, since they had dubbed the sun to be north) and each had strange dark green haze swirling around their peaks. Seemingly endless plains were off to the east, the grass itself a multitude of unusual colors, from blue to red, and even purple, all giving off a strange similarly colored aura. It looked like massive, multicolored heatwave was rising out of the grass.<p>

Even the sky had managed to change. Instead of being it's dark shade of blue devoid of clouds, it had changed color to pitch black, and the sky had been filled with what seemed like millions of stars, all as colorful as the grass below them, forming beautiful shapes, forms, and constellations. There were so many, in fact, that although the sky was pitch black, you could barely see the sky at all, because there were so many vivid shapes and colors up there with it. And still, the massive, white sun with the abnormal growth was still exactly where it had been since Leo and Fyuria had awakened. The only difference now was that it gave off an aura as well, bathing what would have been darkened land in a freakish white light. The weirdest part was that wherever the light touched, there were no shadows. Even when Leo and Fyuria looked behind themselves, their bodies possessed no shadows. It was disturbing, to say the least.

But none of that was comparable to what the two of them were seeing now. Leo had been right about his observation on the horizon earlier. They had indeed come to a cliff. A cliff that stretched for as far as Leo could see both to his left and right, perfectly straight. But that had not been the amazing part. That was that this cliff... connected to nowhere. There was no land at all when Leo looked out at the sun. Instead, all he saw was the sky. The same pitch black sky, the same colorful constellations, and the same white sun, except now he could see the whole thing, half of it having been under the cliff's ridge line. And even that was not all; when Leo looked down, the cliff-side extended downward forever, never reaching any ground. And a massive waterfall was pouring down the side of the cliff, it's water seemingly seeping out of the cliff-side itself and disappearing into an endless void.

It was as if they had reached the end of the world. As if the world itself was flat, as was the belief all those centuries ago. What Leo was seeing...wasn't physically possible. It couldn't exist. The world was round, not some plane that just stopped at all the edges. How could this be happening? It hurt his head just thinking about it. He couldn't understand; he just couldn't fathom it. He retreated a distance from the cliff and the massive waterfall that seemingly fell directly into space in order to think. Where the hell had he landed? Was it one of the other continents? Even if it was, this... this wasn't-!

"Leo."

Leo was snapped from his thoughts by the sound of Fyuria's voice. "I know this is bothering you a lot, but you shouldn't worry about it so much. No matter where we are, or what's going on, we'll be with each other the whole way, and there's nothing we can't overcome like that."

Leo smiled at her. She was right. Things would be fine. As long as they were together, he had nothing to worry about. "Thanks Fyuri. Why don't we go ahead and sleep here for the night. We'll just use my coat to block out the light. Besides, the grass here is pretty comfy."

Fyuria blushed and looked away from him. "A-alright. But if you do 'that' again, I definitely won't forgive you, OK?"

Leo knew what she was talking about, and he could only imagine how angry she would be if he did it again. "O-of course not. Wouldn't dream of it!"

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><p><strong>So there it is. Finally, after two months, here is the next chapter of this fic. And it's SO FREAKIN' SHORT!<strong>

**Hopefully, The chapters will start to get longer as the story plot thickens. **

**AND I PROMISE THE NEXT CHAPTER WON'T TAKE SO LONG TO PUT OUT!**

**Thanks for reading, please let me know if there is anything I could do better, or if the story is procceding nicely. Thanks!**


	3. Another World

**So I've decided to switch up the order in which I'm writing my fics for now. I'm letting my latest chapter of "If only it were easy" build up some views, and my newest story, "The Exeter Project, kicked off with a great 150 hits in a day and a half, so I'll write a chapter for it later. What's left is this, the third chapter of ATE, which is much longer than it's two predecessors. Again, it took awhile to update the story with this one, so you'll have to forgive me for my lack of spare time. (And my laziness in my spare time!)**

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><p>The endless cliff served as a constant reminder to Fyuria that things were not as they should be. No matter how far or how long she and Leo walked, it was always to their right, the freakish white sun of this world suspended in the void beyond it. Due to the lack of movement by that same sun, Fyuria had lost the exact count of days she and her lover had been walking. She could get an estimate based on the time she tired out and woke up, but she knew it wasn't an approximate number.<p>

Her current estimate was about three days, maybe four. Which led to another mystery: in all of that time, neither she or Leo had needed food or water. Which was a good thing, considering that there were no resources to attain such things anyway. The waterfall that spewed from the endless cliff was too far away to get any water from,and it probably wasn't safe to drink anyway. But it was disturbing, not needing substance or nourishment. But as long as it didn't have a negative effect, she supposed it didn't matter.

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><p>Another few days passed, or at least what Fyuria had decided were long enough to be days, and finally, FINALLY, something had changed. Over the past few hours, she and Leo had lost their view of the endless rainbow plains, and had something new to look at. A forest, just like the copse that Leo and Fyuria had awoken in, but large enough so that they couldn't see the whole thing. Of course, she was only assuming that it was a forest. It looked just as weird as the rest of the landscape, and for all she knew, maybe it wasn't a forest at all.<p>

Since she and Leo had grown bored of walking along the cliff's edge, they had decided to explore the forest fringe for a little while. The trees looked much like the ones they had awoken to, with twisted, gnarled roots and sickly green glowing foliage. Really, the whole area had an unnatural feel to it, as though the trees themselves were hostile.

The forest also had another strange effect, but neither of the two intruders was aware of it. The longer they were in the forest, the more their thoughts seemed to wander. They were losing focus on their surroundings, not noticing the subtle changes of the terrain as they spent their time in a trance-like state.

Fyuria snapped out of her dream-like stupor once she bumped into Leo's back. She was about to reprimand him, but was silenced when she noticed the forest around them. Many aspects of the forest had changed, without her even realizing it. The forest's trees were no longer what they had been, but were now large pine trees. and Fyuria could've sworn that she heard the cries of animals and beasts in the distance, something she hadn't heard the whole time she and Leo had been traveling around this strange world. And even weirder than that, it had started snowing!

Or perhaps not 'just started snowing.' By observing the trees, it looked like it had been snowing for quite a long time. The trees were coated with it, the ground was covered in it, and the whole forest looked like it had always been snowing, as if it had never known any other weather. Fyuria honestly had no clue what was going on, and a quick question to Leo confirmed that he didn't either.

She also noticed that she felt incredibly tired, as though she had just run a marathon or fought a large battle.

"Leo, do you feel...tired? Exhausted, even?"

Her lover rubbed his eyes before answering. "...Yes. I don't know why, but I just want...to sleep..."

Fyuria spotted a nearby boulder the two of them could sit on. It wouldn't necessarily be comfortable, but it would suffice. Not to mention it was one of the only boulders she could see that wasn't covered in ice. She grabbed Leo's arm and walked him to the over-sized rock, where he sat down heavily with a bone-on-rock thud. If it had hurt, he didn't say so.

Fyuria, on the other hand, sat down gingerly, sighing and rubbing the tips of her long ears to warm them. "I am so confused right now. None of this makes any sense."

Leo merely grunted in response and flattened himself against the rock. He obviously wasn't in the mood to talk right now.

Fyuria glared at him, a little annoyed that he couldn't tell she really needed to talk right now. The past few days had been eerily quiet, with the two of them only exchanging brief words of little importance with each other.

But on the other hand, she was pretty worried about Leo. Was he really so bothered right now that he couldn't talk to her? He should know that he could always tell her anything, whatever it might be. She was his wife, after all.

The gray-haired Syrium decided it was not something she should dwell on. Leo would be fine eventually, and if it took longer than that, she would endure it indefinitely. Her thoughts trailed off in this direction, and she lost focus on her surroundings. The cries of the animals, the snow falling on her exposed body... and the footsteps approaching from behind her, which belonged to neither her nor her husband, who was fast asleep on the rock beside her.

"Oh my, what is such a ravishing beauty like yourself doing out here by yourself?"

Fyuria was startled by the sound of a male voice behind her, one she would have associated with a Casanova like Winfield, although she knew it wasn't that idiot. Whoever it was also thought that she was alone, which meant that the unseen speaker couldn't see Leo from his vantage point. If things turned bad, that could be an advantage, if she used it correctly.

She turned her head nonchalantly to the side, just enough to see who was talking to her. She was a bit surprised to see not one person, but two, and that the duo looked as odd together as she and Leo probably did. One was the man who had spoken to her, a blond-haired man in a blue suit with a stupid smile on his face. The other was a woman, with long, red, spiky hair and golden eyes. Scantily dressed too. Kind of like Fyuria, except this woman had more to show off, much to her own displeasure. Fyuria hated being reminded that she wasn't as mature as most women, whether it was on purpose or not.

The red-haired woman also had pointed ears, but it was obvious that she wasn't Syrium, which meant that she was some sort of elf. The two strangers were also armed with rapiers, and they looked like they knew how to use them.

After she was done examining them, Fyuria remained silent. She wasn't exactly sure what to say anyway.

So instead, the blond-haired man spoke again, with his same flirtatious tone, or at least what was supposed to be flirtatious. "Truly, a fragile nymph like yourself ought not to be alone out here in the cold. Why don't you come back to camp with us? In the meantime, I could keep you warm in my arms from this bitter cold, and-!"

The man's foolish monologue was cut off as the elf woman smacked him in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground. "Shut up already, Thoma. No self-respecting woman would fall for you. And besides, nymphs live in the sea, you idiot."

The man, whom Fyuria assumed was Thoma, stood back up and glanced ruefully at the elf. "Actually, nymph has two definitions, Lavinia; one is the kind you're talking about, and the other is a modest and small woman who is still attractive. Besides, I am very-!"

Now it was Fyuria's turn to hit him. Whether he had been trying to insult her or not, he had still pushed her buttons, and she was frustrated enough to punch someone anyway, even if he was a complete stranger. And by the look on the elf's face, she thought so too. Fyuria could already tell the two of them would get along just fine.

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><p>The trek through the frozen forest did not take long with Lavinia as their guide, and it was made all the easier because Thoma had been forced to carry a still sleeping Leondhart. Perhaps his fatigue was more than that. Fyuria would check on him once they reached this camp these two supposedly had. Of course, she herself was still exhausted, and would probably require some sleep very soon. She was also still confused about the exact nature of her situation. The hows and whys of the phenomenon that had landed her and Leo in this place were too complicated for her to fathom, at least for now.<p>

Instead, she focused on how to resolve the problem, although honestly, she hadn't quite figured out what that was.

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><p><strong>OK, so this chapter was still short, but the reason is because I am going to be without WiFi for awhile, and I would prefer to give you something before that, even if it is short. Sorry guys.<br>**


	4. Life as we Knew it

**Well since nobody offered to help me past my writer's block, you'll just have to settle for a another ridiculously short chapter; don't look at me, blame yourselves.  
><strong>

**Do you know what the problem is with this fiction? I jumped into it without thinking it through. I had the urge to write an Agarest War fic, so I did, without proper planning. I know what I want for the general outline of the story, but not the details in-between all major parts. As a result, compared to my writing norm, this fic is actually quite sub-par. Out of all six of my stories, it is one of the absolute shortest and I dare say poorly written. But to make up for it, I will try to raise it to the same standard as my top works, IOIWE and Beautiful Chaos. (Check those out by the way; they are far superior to this fiction in almost every way, with the exception that they might not be from something you're a fan of.)**

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><p>"So, how much farther is your camp anyway?"<p>

Thoma turned to face the questioning Syrium, Leondhart slumped against his back. "Not far, my lady. We will be there soon, and then you can rest your weary body."

Fyuria didn't have the stomach to be annoyed with the blond man's flirtatious tone, instead merely commenting; "The camp was 'not far' twenty minutes ago."

The elf that was their guide turned to face the two conversationalists. "Actually it is right around the bend up ahead. The grandfather pine trees shield the area from the heavy snows, so it will be mostly dry. And you'll also get Thoma's tent, so that's a plus for everyone."

Thoma smiled slyly. "Oh, I would be more than happy to share my tent with such a beauty, so-"

Lavinia cut him off. "When I said they would get your tent, I meant you would be sleeping outside, idiot."

Thoma's grin turned into a grimace. "But you said it would be a plus for everyone!"

Lavinia smiled cruelly. "Correction. A plus for everyone who matters."

Thoma sighed before responding. "Ah, your barbed words do my heart great harm, and yet they only serve to accent your beauty! How wondrous of a skill you possess, Lavinia!"

Now the elf woman sighed instead. "Oh, please shut up. No body has time for-"

Fyuria, seeing that this whole conversation had prevented the group from advancing, stepped in-between the two quarreling companions. "Hey, remember the main goal. Me, camp, bed."

Thoma returned to his foolish grin. "Ah, yes. It is best that we do not neglect the wishes of our fair companion. Lead on, Lavinia, and we can return to this conversation at a more tasteful time."

Lavinia sighed. "Nobody said I wanted to. You're a smooth talker, but as soon as someone realizes that you're just hitting on them, it kind of loses the appeal."

Fyuria pushed past the two of them and pointed in the general direction they had been going earlier. "You're just rekindling the argument again! Let's go already!"

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><p>The camp itself was quite large, considering that only two people resided here. There were about four beige tents, not to mention a large campfire.<p>

Fyuria thought she would question the quantity of tents compared to people. "Why do you need so many tents if there are only two of you? A little excessive, no?"

Lavinia answered her nonchalantly. "There are actually a lot more of us, but the others are exploring the forest, gathering food and whatnot."

Fyuria cocked an eyebrow at her. "I thought you were the guide. Do they all know their way around the forest?"

The red-haired woman frowned and pointed over to Thoma, who was busy depositing Leo into one of the tents. "Not really, no, but I can actually trust them to make it back to the camp on their own, unlike that idiot."

Fyuria had no time to answer as the blond-haired man being spoken of returned to the two women, his trademark foolish smile on his face. "I can sense that you two are talking about me! Probably admiring my irresistible charm, no doubt!"

Both the Syrium and Dark Elf replied simultaneously. "Dream on, idiot."

Thoma frowned as both of the women insulted him at once. "Sometimes I wonder if Winfield really knows what he's talking about when it comes to this sort of thing..."

Fyuria's mind drew a blank as she heard the name of one of her old companions. It was possible that the Winfield Thoma had just mentioned was not the same as the one she once knew, but somehow she didn't think that was the case.

"I-umm...what does this Winfield person...look like, Thoma?"

The man smirked. "Oh, there's no need to ask a question like that! I'm far better looking then he, not to mention more charming, and a lot younger as well..."

Fyuria cut off his self-gratification. "Just answer the damned question, would you!?"

Thoma stuttered as he answered, shocked by Fyuria's sudden anger. "He's got really long black hair, and a weird red pattern on his chest..."

Fyuria rubbed her temples. "That's enough. I can already tell that he's one and the same... but how?"

Lavinia took note of Fyuria's frustration. "Do you know him? I mean, just knowing that dolt is something to be pretty frustrated about, but..."

Fyuria ignored both of them and walked towards the tent Leo had been put into. The situation had just become much more complicated. Before entering the tent, she looked back at Thoma and Lavinia, making sure the two of them wouldn't eavesdrop on her. It was obvious that although Thoma wanted to, Lavinia was holding him back. Content with that, Fyuria pulled the tent flap aside and stepped into the cloth tent, spying her sleeping husband on one of the two bedrolls that took up the space the tent provided.

She couldn't help but wonder why Leo had been sleeping for so long. He usually neglected rest whenever something was amiss, but this time was apparently an exception. The pointy-eared woman crouched down beside Leo and looked for anything unusual in his appearance. After a few moments of watching his rhythmic breathing, she decided that there was nothing abnormal to be noted.

She gently shook his sleeping body. She was a little reluctant to wake him; God only knows that Leo never got enough sleep as it is. But when he made no response, she leaned back at rested on her haunches. Before waking him, she decided that it would be best to compile everything she had figured out so far, so she could give Leo a reasonable explanation for why she believed the two of them were no longer in that strange place they had awoken in.

First, all of the abnormal surroundings had disappeared. The trees were not glowing a sickly green, the little bit of sun she had seen through the treetops was not a bulbous and grotesque white orb, and the air was not distorted as it had been.

Secondly, Leo was sleeping. Back when the two of them were in the other world, neither of them had ever grown tired nor needed food. And Fyuria's now growling stomach assured her that the latter was no longer the case either.

And finally, those two strangers outside were apparently good friends with Winfield... who had definitely not accompanied Leo and the other two women into the Lucrellia pillar. All of these things pointed to reality, instead of whatever twisted dream world the two lovers had awoken in. How they had made the transit between the two worlds was beyond her understanding though.

Feeling a strange exhaustion slowly overcome her as well, she decided that figuring out the exact situation could wait until after a much needed nap. She crawled into the sleeping bag beside Leo, confident that Lavinia would keep the blond dolt outside from doing anything the Syrium wouldn't agree with. Rest came quickly, and Fyuria silently drifted off into her own dreams, all the while cuddling the sleeping figure of her estranged husband.

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><p><strong>As I said above, I wanted this to be longer, but nobody offered to help me get past my block even when I requested help, so you'll just have to deal with it.<strong>


	5. Time and Confusion

**It has been a really long time huh? But this time, I actually have a legitimate excuse! A few weeks ago, my battered and beaten computer charger finally died out on me, and I had no choice but to conserve my battery for school purposes until my replacement arrived in the mail. But now that I'm finally back, I'm trying my best to catch up with all of my stories. Under normal circumstances, I would have temporarily discontinued this fic, but a good number of people actually like it, so I can't do that now can I? Anyway, I do have to admit that the bulk of this fic will probably be comprised of short chapters, but there's really nothing I can do, since I am writing these things on a whim without any premeditation. Anyway...**

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><p>Fyuria awoke with a start, but her eyes remained closed, as she tried to identify what had woken her from a much needed slumber. She listened for the sound of something unusual that may have been the source of the disturbance, but she heard... nothing. She couldn't hear the wind, the animals, or anything else but the rhythmic breaths of her sleeping husband.<p>

After a few moments of this, Fyuria finally realized the cause of her sudden awakening; the world around her was completely silent. It was so eerily quiet, that the lack of background noise had actually disturbed her rest. Finally cracking her eyelids open, her silver eyes were met with the sight of her husband's back. Rolling over to get better view of her surroundings, she immediately recognized a major difference in the tent she had fallen asleep in the other day: and that difference was quite significant, because the tent itself was not over her head like it should have been.

Instead, her head was covered by gnarled, twisted trees with sickly, green glowing leaves.

"W-what the hell...?"

Looking down at herself, Fyuria also noticed that the bedroll she had fallen asleep on was gone as well. In fact, as she looked in every direction, she could see that everything was gone. The snow, the pine trees, the camp site, and even Lavinia and Thoma, were all nowhere to be seen.

Unbearably distressed and confused with this whole situation, the Syrium girl cried out, "What kind of sick joke is this?!"

The outburst seemed abnormally loud in the silence of this perverted forest, and it awakened Leo from his long slumber. He slowly sat up and rubbed his drooping eyelids. "Fyuria... what's the matter?"

"It's gone! All of it! T-the tents, the snow... even..."

Leo recognized the distress Fyuria was experiencing and proceeded to wrap his arms around her, in an attempt to calm the trembling Syrium.

"It's alright, Fyuri. Slow down, I don't understand. What's wrong?"

Fyuria leaned back into her lover's arms, still bewildered as to the circumstances surrounding her. "Don't you remember...? The forest, and the snow..."

Leondhart eyed his wife worriedly. "No... I don't remember any of that. Maybe you were dreaming?"

"No, no... I was sure..."

Leo pulled Fyuria to the ground with him, turned her to face him, and planted a kiss on her forehead. "Fyuri, it was just a dream. This forest... it's stressing us out. Making us worry. But as long as we're together, it won't get to us. Right?"

Fyuria smiled and relaxed in her husband's arms, content with dismissing what she thought was reality as a dream. "Yeah... It won't get to us... as long as we protect each other."

Disentangling themselves from each other, the two lovers rose to their feet and looked around, met with the familiar, although not any less strange, environment of glowing foliage and pale sunlight that originated from a mutated white sun. Leondhart sighed with resignation.

"This place... everything looks so similar that we may never know if we're making progress."

Fyuria took hold of his hand and looked out to the cliff that she knew marked the edge of this unknown world. With the plains of rainbow grass stretched out in-between the couple and the horizon, it was impossible to tell how far the cliff was from them. On one hand, it seemed within a short jog's distance, but on the other, the cliff edge seemed infinitely far away, as if one could walk for the rest of their days and yet never reach it.

"Don't think about it like that, Leo. I'm sure we'll get somewhere eventually. And maybe... we'll find Elaine too."

Leo cocked an eyebrow at her. "What about Luana?"

Fyuria reciprocated the same look back to him. "What about her? That blonde bimbo-"

"Fyuria!"

The long-haired Syrium smiled mischievously. "Oh come on, I was only kidding! I mean, she is still a bimbo, but..."

"That's enough, Fyuri."

"One more?"

"No."

* * *

><p>"Will you please stop twirling those things?"<p>

Luana glanced over at Elaine irritably, and made no motion to cease spinning her breakers around her dainty fingers. "I can't help it! We're lost in a strange place, and Leondhart is nowhere to be found! What if my darling Leo is lost out there somewhere, with only that barbaric excuse for a woman to accompany him? Argh, I can't stand it!"

Elaine sighed as she surveyed the distant ground far below her and her irritating companion. Unfortunately, most of the colorful grasslands in the distance were obscured by green mist that clung to the top of the mountain peaks she and Luana resided on.

"That 'barbaric' woman has a name. And considering Leondhart chose Fyuria over you, Luana, I wouldn't be-"

"That's untrue! Leondhart only chose her because he thought that I was above his class! So he went for the lesser quality item to avoid the embarrassment he thought he would endure, because he's and idiot who couldn't tell that I was waiting on him to pick me!"

Elaine snickered. "Oh, is that your excuse? Maybe Leo just thinks Fyuria is prettier than you."

Luana's face went completely red. "B-b-but he chose Fyuria over you as well!"

This time Elaine became flustered. "W-well! That's because I'm his old friend, and he was afraid of making it awkward between us and putting our friendship in jeopardy! A-and... Fyuria is more... er... exotic than me! Leo was temporarily blinded by that!"

Luana snickered much in the same way Elaine had a moment ago. "Ha! That's foolish! If Leo was looking for an exotic woman, his search would have been over as soon as he laid eyes on me! You're just making a pathetic excuse to delude yourself from the truth."

"And you aren't?!"

The two women were at each others throats in a heartbeat. "What did you say about me?"

"Me? You started this!"

"Yeah, but you said something unacceptable first!"

Then they both shouted simultaneously; "You liar! I'll kill you!"

The rest of their evening was spent more on a ridiculous cat-fight, instead of accomplishing what they should've been; searching for their friends.

* * *

><p><strong>This is the shortest chapter I've ever written for any story, EVER. But it's really just an intermission chapter while I try to figure out where the hell I'm going with this thing. Like I've said before, I have the basic outline, but not the specific details.<strong>


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